County government: managers versus deputies

I knew before taking office that the position of Auditor had deputies and managers reporting to it.  I knew the deputies were political appointees – meaning I could replace them upon taking office – and I could set their salaries as long as I remained at or below the cap set by the Iowa Code, i.e., 80% of my salary for two deputies and 75% for other deputies.

I discovered managers are treated differently.  Although they report to me, their salaries and benefits are determined by the Board of Supervisors.  The biggest advantage of designating a position as a manager is the ability to bypass the statutory limits for deputies, i.e., the 80% caps or $67,564.30.

Last year, the Iowa Legislature decided to increase the respective caps from 80% to 85% and from 75% to 80% for deputies in the Auditor’s, Treasurer’s, and Recorder’s Offices; however, this did NOT affect the deputies in the Sheriff’s or County Attorney’s Offices as the Legislature increased their caps years ago.

In my opinion, the trend in county government is to decrease the number of deputies and increase the number of managers even though a deputy converted to a manager may be doing the exact same work as he/she did as a deputy.  It's possible the only difference is that someone took the deputy’s job description and titled it “manager”.

I remember a discussion vintage 1988 at Teleconnect when I was working on a compensation committee reviewing every job description in the company.  At one point, the HR Director declared, “if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, you can call it whatever you want, but it’s still a duck”.

I challenge anyone to name a private sector firm in the State of Iowa that has ever frozen the salaries of one group of employees and not frozen the salaries of the remaining employees.  Please provide a contact name and phone number as I will call them to confirm.  And I will print their name in my blog – assuming it won’t get them sued.

If you’re going to freeze the salaries of one group of “ducks”, then you should be freezing the salaries of the other “ducks”.  Fair is fair!  --Joel @ 7:00pm

posted on Thursday, February 28, 2008 12:40 PM by joel.miller   |    Login or Join to Post Comments

Comments

Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:38 PM by BufoMarinas

# re: County government: managers versus deputies

Sounds like an area that would benefit from some mini reform. At first, when reading this
entry, I felt taken aback. Then I remembered this was coming from our counties auditor.

Let us all understand the point your attempting to communicate.

-In your eyes, there are two job titles performing the same roles(Deputy & Manager)

- Deputies salaries are subject to an upper limit known as a CAP, that is keyed from your salary.

- Managers salaries are defined by the board of supervisors(no additional information was shared regarding the method the BOS use for determining the salary for a manager)

I commend you for illuminating this topic the people of Linn county. I will be honest in telling you I didn't know of this Manager v Deputy conundrum within our county offices.
Then again, the whole thing is extremely boring, yet also very important in understanding the under-belly of our local government.

In my eyes, you are describing a human resource issue. I don't think anyone living in Linn County would think poorly of an honest person working an honest job, where that person would try to improve their position by simply obtaining a different title. Especially if the JOB is very similar. . . or the same, as the one they are currently performing.

My guess is you may find several people that disagree these two jobs are identical. That can be important when the people within the inner circle of this topic get together. My advice, make sure each job has an explicit job description. MAke sure the wage for the job is well considered. If a group of people that truly care about this issue decide these jobs are really kind of the same, then reform the approach. If not, report the findings of the query that should be made, and give the fine people of Linn County a nice warm fuzzy feeling that all you public servants can work together. Give it the ole college try people.
All for one, and 1 for all! oh rah!









Let me share with you my opinion on what you have told us this far




There seems to be several points of confusion on the differences & similarities between Managers & Deputies as the relate to their role in aiding effective AUDIT processes.

Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:41 PM by BufoMarinas

# re: County government: managers versus deputies

oh, and one other thing. That remark about the Ducks is not cool. We are people, not ducks!
Monday, March 03, 2008 9:13 PM by Joel Miller

# re: County government: managers versus deputies

Dear BufoMarinas:

Thanks for your comments!

I appreciate the points you made. Obviously, a big part of the reason I'm blogging is to try to explain some of the inner workings of county government. Some days I do better than others.

Some things are so unique in county government that they have no match in the private sector. Managers versus deputies is an area where an employer can legally favor one class of employees over another class without fear of being sued. That's not a good situation even if it's legal.

Thanks again,

Joel
9:10pm
3 March 2008